Posts: 1663
Location: Kodiak, AK | Well like I said, a few out of every thousand. I talked to my mechanic tonight (seems I talk to him every day now about getting this motor hung) and he said he'd only had one that clogged. Talking with one of the guys that sent me an email, he clarified as to why he recommended not using one. I'm not a copy and paste kindof guy, but it's easiest to just C&P his email-
'My ’06 HPDI blew for the 2nd time a few months ago, and my best friend who is a Yamaha Certified Master Mechanic told me that my #6 cylinder had leaned out. We were trying to isolate the problem. When we did the water test with the new powerhead he had a gauge system hooked into the fuel rail and it was loosing vacuum at hard pushes of the throttle. We removed the ep-10 fuel flow meter and vacuum issue went away….. Although we cannot be 100% sure, we feel this was the reason it blew THIS time. Again, install the fuel flow meter if you want, but be very wary and check your vacuum regularly. The little wheel inside of the meter comes off track easily and will also clog up from the smallest debris. This is where the issue lies."
That's the only instance I have of them potentially messing up a motor. The other emails just mentioned clogging, and they all chalked them up to Ethanol deterioration getting caught in the pick-up. I guess if you installed it behind the fuel/water separator, you could hope to avoid issues like this.
And I understand what you mean about the load being different every time out and so forth. I didn't mean to imply that your numbers would be the same every time. I guess my point is that for the $400 that a fuel flow guage would cost me, I can play with my rpms and speed on my own, and that $400 is the better part of a four blade prop. |